LIVING LANGUAGES
Arawak
In i594-95> three years before Jan de Laet's wordlists were collected
in Trinidad, Robert Dudley and Captain Wyatt recorded near Punta
Carao in the southwest of the same island lists containing, respectively,
sixty-seven and twenty-seven items of a language which Wyatt called
"Aroaca, sermo Indianus,*' There can be little doubt that this language is to
be identified with that now called Arawak or Lokono, still spoken by several
thousand Indians in Surinam and British Guiana (Guyana). Forty of
these words are given below, together with a few recorded about the same
time "near the mouths of the river Orinoco" by Vazquez de Espinosa,
and opposite them are listed their equivalents (and a few only near
equivalents) as recorded in 1968 by me in Surinam. (The complete list
may be found in Taylor 1957, and, for Dudley and Wyatt, in Warner
1899.) It should be noted that Arawak forms beginning in d(ay are
possessed by first person singular *my', and those beginning in w(a)- or
o(a>-, by the first person plural 'our'. (For the phonemes of modem
Arawak, see below, p. 134, and Taylor 1969, 1970, 1976.)
Surinam, 1968
Trinidad, J 594-98
(D = Dudley. W = Wyatt,
L B de Laet, V s Vazquez de Espinosa)
dadena (D)
semaro (D), symare (L)
marrahabo (D), semarape (L)
hacuUe (D)
caUit(D)
dudica (D), dadica (W), wadycke (L)
dacosi (D), dacasi (W), wackosije (L)
dadboh (W)
hickct (D), iquigi (V)
dacutti (D), dackosye (L)
viauite (V)
dabarra (D), dabarah (W)
dacan, dacabbo (D), dacabo (W)
Cioss
dadina
arm
^n^atL
arrow
simar&bo
bow
hikili
bowstring
kh^
cassava
dadfke, oadike
ear
dak6si, oak6si
eye
daslbo
face
hfkihi
fire
dakdti
foot
bibithi
four
dabdra
hair
dakhdbo
hand
23 AMERINDIAN LANGUAGES OF THE WEST INDIES
Tnnithd, 1594-98
Surinam, 1968
Gloss
dacy (W), wass^ehe (L)
dasi, oasi
head
dacurle (D)
dak6ro
knee
ycddola (D), edu61a (W)
iad6ala
knife
daddano (D), dadane (L)
dad^ma
leg
maurisse
m&risi
maize
cattle (D), cattchcc (L)
kdthi
moon
saeckee(L)
s^Uw'utenis;
eggshell*
mother
dalacoak (D), dalardcoh (W), dalerocke (L)
daliroko
mouth
dabodda (D), daMdoh (W)
dab&da
nail, claw
dadrcy (W), wassycrii (L)
dasiiri, oasiiri
nose
abariia (V)
ab&(ro)
one
beklaro (D)
haararo
pot spoon
arguecona, arkeano 0>), arkekano (W)
arikiko^a
scissors
weeuah (D), wecuah (W)
oioa 'star'
sky
daditeOO
d&ithi(< d&dithi)
son
addehegaeno (D)
adikhikotoa
spyglass
sibath (D)
dba
stone
haddaUe (D), hadalcy (W), adaly (L)
hidaU
sun
halete(D)
hAlithi
sweet potato
cabuinOO
kAbtin
three
urat (D), uree (W)
i^
tobacco
diU (« diee?)
daide
tongue
arehch (D). dary (W), darii (L)
ailhi,ddri
todth
addoth (D), adda (W), hada <L)
Ada
tree
viamaOO
biama, bian
two
guine (V), oronuic (D)
dni •rain', oniAbo
•water'
water
sake](D)
s^kili *be Is
weU/^>od*^
it is well
Most probably printer's errors, in Dudley's list, are "dill' for "diee"
(the spelling Dudley might well have used for /daice/ *my tongue') and
"dalacoak' for "dalaroka" (/dal^roko/ 'my mouth'). Ckarly innovations
are the words for 'scissors' and 'spyglass', made up of the verb stems
meaning, respectively, 'cut' and 'see' together with an instrumental
suffix -kodna (cf. Island-Carib, which, for 'scissors', borrowed Sp.
tijeras as IC sirasi). The word given in De Laet's publication for 'mother'
is a compound of A sa- 'child, offspring; egg' and -ke {ike) 'container'.
Cognate with this latter is IC dcae (modem /dgai/) 'container', which
served and serves tq^ designate the physiological as distinct from the
sociological mother (Mo, MoSi, MoFaBrDa, etc.). Finally, Dudley's,
Wyatt's, and De Laet's lists include— besides </(a> 'my; me; I* (common
to Arawak and Taino) — ^words for 'mouth' and 'sun', cognate equivalents
of which are attested for no other language but Arawak.
* The Arawak word has male-human gender (-//) and cannot therefore refer to 'it',
although Dudley's gloss has 'it is well*.
Taylor, Douglas. 1977. Languages of the West Indies.
Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
